The Tybee 500 is hard enough without having to contend with massive stinkpots that blow past at close range. But if they behaved they wouldn’t be called stinkpots. Here’s what happened to our buddy Tad on Team Velocity:
“Once again I’m reminded of the fickleness of mother nature after a day like today. The day began with about 3 knots of wind with some impressive surf. You know its going to be an interesting launch when the local surfers are out just next to the start line. Shortly after the start we popped open the chute and pulled out in front of a couple boats. We were stoked. Wind piped up to 10 knots and more northeasterly with a sloppy 2 to 3 foot chop. It was enough to single trap but still was overpowering in the puffs. We could double trap because it would imbalance the boat. Our good friends at Windy Hill had pulled away from us, but we still had 3 boats behind us when catastrophe struck. We were double trapped and crossing an inlet when a fairly large sportfishing boat crossed our bows no more than 20 feet away. Trey and I exchanged well wishes to each other while we watched the wake quickly approach. I was hooked into the chicken line but Trey was only using footstraps. As the 2nd wake wave submarined our bows, it felt as if we had just been hit by a garbage truck. My chicken line held but Trey was washed off. As he made his way to the leward side of the boat via the trapeze wire, I tried to unhook from the chicken line in time to grab the tiller and put the boat in irons. I was to slow getting in off the trap and she went over. Took us only 5 minutes to right the boat but the energy that is required to perform the maneuver just saps your strength when your dealing with the conditions we were sailing in. It was disappointing only because we finished 12 minutes behind the next boat.”
And I thought Rodney Dangerfield was dead. Meanwhile, the SailMax team has put both their boats into the top 5. Nice work…
A More Unusual Tybee Hazard: “Heh-heh. Here they come. Time to warm the water up…”
The Earthist Chronicles 